


too far

by perhapssoon



Series: trials of a bender [2]
Category: Splatoon
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, avi gets hurt rlly badly so uhhh, dont call him the avatar guys, this is what happens when jokes go way too far, you might get kidnapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 10:24:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18408722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perhapssoon/pseuds/perhapssoon
Summary: "You must be the Avatar," they said. "You can control all four elements," they said.They were wrong.





	too far

**Author's Note:**

> hahahahahahaha there aren't enough aviator fics out there,,,, so naturally i just have to do some angst

Aviator is an airbender. Only an airbender. He knows that well enough to utilize it to its full potential in battle and to use it to his advantage. 

But it was Aloha who started the joke, and now everything that was true about Aviator himself was thrown out the window.

It started off simple. Aloha asked Aviator in passing if he was the Avatar because his name was so similar, and Aviator half-laughed, half-flipped Aloha off. It was a dumb thing to say, and he told the pink Inkling so and Aloha just left, grinning widely.

The next person who asked was Scuba, who probably got roped in by his leader to ask. Aviator just ignored him, but the people kept coming.

It was annoying, because wherever he went, people constantly asked him whether he was the Avatar or not, to the point where he questioned if they even knew if he was only an airbender.

Of course, he wouldn't be able to remind anyone either because they just followed up with, "But you can also bend the other elements, right?" with such a shit-eating grin on their face, he wanted to slap them.

That night, after his usual practice round with his team, a block of light appeared beneath him when he crossed the street. It was unusual, to say the least, but what was even stranger was that it seemed to be some sort of portal?

He only has half a second to think up some curse word before he falls, the light around him growing brighter and brighter until it blinds him. He closes his eyes, stomach flying into his throat, waiting for an impact---

But none came.

The light around him seems to have vanished, and he opens his eyes rather hesitantly, unwilling to see what exactly had happened to him, and is met with an earth wall, something that blocks his view of everything around him. Once he tries to turn around to leave, he's met with another wall.

He's effectively boxed in, a realization that sends a spear of panic through him before he forces himself to relax. 

“Hey!” His voice echoes loudly in the small space, and he winces. “Is this someone’s idea of a sick joke?”

There’s a rumbling sound and the walls slide away, revealing a glass wall, tinted so he can't see who's behind it. He clenches one fist, air bending to his will and swirling violently around his arm, ruffling the ends of his jacket. "What the hell?"

Feedback nearly blows his ears out and he follows the noise to a large speaker mounted overheard. 

_"Hello Aviator."_

The voice is foreign to him, either by distortion or because he actually didn't know whoever was on the other side of the glass. He hopes it's the latter, because this isn't funny, and if it has anything to do with the whole 'Avatar' thing, then he--

_"I heard you were the Avatar."_

Great. Just great.

"I'm not the fucking Avatar!" he shouts, and the wind picks up around him with his anger. Cod, once he gets out, he's going to  _kill_  Aloha for starting all this carp.

_"Everyone in Inkopolis seems to disagree. They say you can wield multiple elements."_

"Sorry, I don't talk to people I don't know," Aviator grumbles. In all honesty, the situation is starting to freak him out a bit. The cell is small, and he finds his eyes searching for a way out. He can't bust his way out of the glass, because the air isn't consistent enough or stable enough to pack a usable punch. In bringing him underground, they lowered the air quality so it was useless other than creating bursts of wind to levitate.

_"I am DJ Octavio. Our people have been looking for the Avatar for centuries. I do know there is a team that is under the term of 'Avatar' though they merely contain members able to wield one element each. That doesn't hold our interest, so my most elite spies ventured aboveground to see if they can find someone who has potential. You are a qualified airbender, yes?"_

He grits his teeth. He doesn't want to answer, because this Octavio guy seems awfully suspicious, but he's tired of being called the Avatar. Once, just once, he wants to be acknowledged as an airbender, not as the guy whose name sounds like 'Avatar'. "Yeah, I'm an airbender.  _Only_  an airbender, if I might add. No other elements."

There's a brief silence from the speaker.  _"Yes, so I've heard. But my spies also tell me that many Inklings are saying you are the Avatar."_

"It's a stupid joke." Aviator shoves his hands into his jacket pockets, letting the wind calm around him. Something tells him he needs to stay calm, even though he can feel a prickle of annoyance rising inside him. "It's not true. Now can you let me go?"

_"You're being very dismissive for something as huge as being the Avatar."_

He resists the urge to roll his eyes. "It's a joke that's been going on for way too long. It's not true, none of it." Frustration and anger snaps and he lunges forward, punching the glass so hard, it cracks down the center. "Let me out, goddammit!"

DJ Octavio's voice sounds calm, even with the tinted window broken.  _"Only after you complete the tests and unlock the Avatar State."_

"Oh for f--"

The ground opens up beneath him, and he falls feet first into a pile of quicksand. He immediately begins to sink, and he flails wildly, struggling to remember what to do if you were drowning in something other than water. He hates himself for not remembering anything from Full Moon, who was probably the only person from Mask's team to actively talk to him about countering earth attacks. Tri was too shy, Jersey too clingy, and Mask just didn't give a single fuck about him. 

What was it that she said about quicksand?

_"Bend your way out, Avatar. You are made for this. Stop struggling and just bend!"_

No, that wasn't it. Aviator wants to scream at Octavio to shut up, but the sand is already to his neck, and shouting won't help. 

What did Full Moon say?

_Relax._

Almost as if it were instinct to listen to the voices in his head, Aviator unwillingly relaxes his body, automatically starting to float to the surface. He needs to get out somehow, other than just floating, and while his current lack of movement is helping quite a bit, the sand is starting to get everywhere: in his clothes, his mouth, his shoes.

He summons a burst of air, and blows back the goopy water, slowly moving himself to the side of the wall to dry land using slight puffs of wind. Octavio doesn't say a single word this whole time, and by the time Aviator reaches the side, he feels like he just swallowed a mouthful of sand.  It's not pleasant, more vomit-inducing than anything else, but he stands and looks upwards for the speaker Octavio probably planted here. "Okay, I can't earthbend. Now can you let me go?"

There's no reply; instead, hoses crack through the walls, and Aviator has to dodge to avoid one nearly impaling him in the face. He expects them to fill the room with water or something, and he summons a sphere of air to protect himself, when fire just blasts from the mouths of the hoses, setting the hem of his jacket on fire as he instinctively tumbles to the ground. He desperately extinguishes it using his hand, but now the hoses are aiming towards him, the white-hot jets of flame edging closer in each second. He runs along the edge of the room, avoiding the pit of quicksand, while struggling to not fry himself to a crisp.

_"Bend the flames!"_  Octavio yells, his voice crackling in the speaker.  _"You idiot! Just bend them!"_

"I can't firebend, you jerk!" Aviator doesn't care whether Octavio hears him or not. He's just trying not to die here, which is going to be harder than expected. All of the running has resulted in a severe loss of air on his part and he stops to gasp for breath, before a hose swings in his direction and quite literally spits fire in his face. The heat is painful, almost blinding, as he quickly moves the air out of the way of the fire, successfully putting it out from lack of oxygen.

It's getting harder to breathe now, and it's a mixture of smoke and a weird earthy smell that pursues him everywhere he goes in this small room.

He's going to die here.

The panic is what sends a wave of air from his body, pressing against the hoses with enough force that they are jammed backwards into their respective walls, the flames immediately going out, quicksand sloshing over the sides of the small pool its in. He falls to his knees, panting. Somehow, he's still intact, his sunglasses still on his face, even though he's missing a lens, clothes charred, burnt, and covered in sand that had been heated enough to turn into glass. His throat is burning, and he struggles to open his mouth to breathe.

_"Hm. You are rather persistent in hiding your bending abilities."_  Octavio doesn't seem concerned that the only Avatar candidate he has is quite literally dying because Aviator  _can't_  bend any other element.

"F-f... fuck... o-off." Aviator can't see -- his ability to see left him along with any sort of self preservation. "What are you gonna do, drown me in water next?"

_"Yes. You haven't been tested for waterbending yet."_

Aviator just responds by curling into a ball. He's exhausted. He wonders briefly if this is what Scuba goes through every time he has an asthma attack and he makes a mental note to not jump scare the other Inkling so much if he ever gets out of here.

There's a gurgling sound, like an underground gusher, and water shoots from the walls, covering him in liquid. He closes his eyes and holds his breath, not that he really had any oxygen in his lungs to begin with. He's vaguely aware of his body floating upwards as the water level rises, and he forms an air sphere around him as a futile attempt to keep himself dry.

Octavio is saying something, but Aviator can't hear. The water recedes quickly, sending him to the ground with a thud, sending jolts of pain up through his body.

_"You. You are pathetic. You are no Avatar. You can't waterbend, you can't earthbend, you can't firebend. You only can airbend. What are you, some random airbender?"_

For some reason, those words are funny to Aviator and the purple Inkling finds laughter bubbling in his throat. It comes spilling out, ringing through the room, stunning Octavio into silence. "T-that's beca-- that's because I  _am_  a random airbender," Aviator chokes out, his body rocking with waves of laughter that made the pain worse, but he can't stop. His voice rises, bordering on insanity. "You, a-actually thought I was the fucking Ava-- Avatar and you--"

He breaks off, the pain and hilarity too much for him to handle.

When Octavio speaks again, he sounds disgusted.

_"I'm sending you back to the surface. Don't ask me for any favors when you find you can bend multiple elements."_

Aviator is laughing too hard to really comprehend anything that the other just said, instead just curling into himself as a way to stave off the pain while continuing to howl with laughter.

In the spaces between the echoes, he hears a loud  _clunk_ , and everything goes black.

\--

Skull reaches the base right after training, Paisley and Squid-Stitch right behind him. Aviator had gone on ahead as he said he was tired and needed to go to bed, but when the rest of the Purple Team arrived, the right-hand-man was nowhere to be found.

They retraced their steps, as if doing so would help them find the teammate that they lost like a bundle of keys, but to no avail. Really, Skull would be concerned, if not for the fact that Aviator tended to fall asleep in really strange places; he found him once sleeping standing up on the side of Crusty Sean's food truck, and another time he found his friend facefirst on the floor after practice.

But the entire night passed without a single sign of Aviator, and Skull is starting to worry. Paisley and Stitch spent the whole night attempting to reach his phone, while Skull himself called the other teams to see if they had seen Aviator. None of them had been with Aviator ever since the previous afternoon, which caused all the more reason to be anxious.

"He could be sleeping in a weird spot again," Paisley says, hanging up on after attempting to call Aviator for the thirtieth time in a row. "He has a habit of doing that, right?"

"It's eight in the morning," Stitch puts in. She had already given up on calling after the fifteenth time, and Skull honestly couldn't blame her.

None of them had gotten any sleep last night, and they spent the whole time making calls and pacing the house. The carpet was run down with how many times they've made their rounds over the patterned floor, a thin white line down the hardwood where they'd tracked their own steps over and over and over.

They all look worse for wear, but Skull took the brunt of it, because Aviator is his best friend, why  _wouldn't_  he worry for him?

His phone rings then, a noise that hasn't been heard the whole night, and Paisley lunges for it, tossing it across the room to where Skull sat. By the call screen, it's Aloha.

"Hello."

_"Hey, uh, Skull. You were looking for Avi, right?"_

Skull immediately picks up on the whole thing wrong with this situation. It's not Aloha on the other end of the line; it's Army.

"Yeah." He sits up straighter, his teammates watching him for any sudden movements. "Why? Did you find him?"

_"Yeah, we did and I--"_  Army breaks off, and Scuba comes on the line, his voice punctuated by wheezing breaths, something that Skull takes to be urgent if it's making the pink Inkling's asthma act up.

_"Yo, Skull, Avi's hurt. Like, really badly. Looks like some benders jumped him in some alleyway but he's telling us that it isn't from anyone who is on the surface, whatever that means. He wants to see you, but he collapsed before we could get anywhere. We're tryin' to get him into squid form so it's easier to get him to you but, cod, we don't want to hurt him anymore than he already is. You gotta get to the Square and--"_

Scuba breaks off, followed by the telltale puff of his inhaler, and Army comes back on.

_"Just come here, okay Skull? This is urgent."_

The phone clicks off, but Skull is already out the door.

\--

Everything hurts. Everything hurts and he can't see. There are voices around him, shouts, whispers, questions of  _are you okay?_  Aviator wants to tell them that, no, he isn't okay, but his voice doesn't seem to be working. He's being supported by someone, though he can't tell who, at least until he hears their voice.

"Just hang in there, 'kay? Skull's coming right now."

_Aloha._

There's a brief urge to smack the other Inkling and Aviator actually lifts his arm to do so, but the pain that sparks through his shoulder is enough to make him hiss in agony and his knees buckle, someone else grabbing him to make sure he doesn't fall.

Aloha vanishes from his side and Aviator is met with the familiar scent of an Inkling he knows way too well.

"H-ey Sku-ll." His voice is raspy, broken, and his throat feels raw. Skull just adjusts his grip slightly and they're moving forward. There are whispers from the crowd around them, but he can't tell what they're saying. 

They move in silence for several minutes, and they're safely back in their team base before Skull speaks. "Can you squid form?"

Aviator tries, he really does. But as soon as his limbs start to melt into the cephalopod form, a sudden pain seizes his body and he almost collapses, coming back into Inkling form. His body is shaking uncontrollably and with his eyes barely half-open, he can see Skull staring at him, concern written in those violet eyes. "No, I-- I can't." It hurts to talk, and he shuts his mouth almost immediately because it's getting harder to breathe too.

"Does he need a healer?" Aviator's eyes flick to the left, where he can see Stitch and Paisley, tilted slightly on the doorframe-- or maybe he was the one who was sideways, because there were suddenly cushions underneath him when he was sure he was standing only a second ago.

Skull doesn't answer at first, pulling out his phone and typing something before setting the device aside. "Yes, I texted Aloha. Can you go find Straw?"

Paisley nods quickly and moves past Aviator, eyes showing pity before she's gone, Stitch hurrying after her. 

The door clicks shut.

Skull hovers over him, and now that Aviator is lying still, he can see that his friend looks like he went through the entire day with no sleep. Which is fitting, because Aviator was probably trapped in that stupid place underground for the entire night. 

"Were they benders?" Skull's voice is quiet, yet Aviator can hear it clearly. He understands immediately what his leader means. No, they weren't benders, but something far beyond that.

He opens his mouth to speak, but the only that comes out is a wheeze. He closes his mouth again and shakes his head, which just causes the pain to increase.

The door slams open again, and Stitch and Paisley come back into the house, Straw at their heels. The pink Inkling immediately kneels besides Aviator, drawing water from the pouch at her belt, Skull hesitantly moving aside for her.

"Skull--" Paisley starts to say, before her eyes dart to Aviator as if she just noticed he was there. She beckons for the other Inkling to come to her and Stitch and after a brief glance back at Aviator, the masked Inkling stands and moves to where the girls are huddled over Stitch's phone.

Silence falls and the water in Straw's hands start to glow and she gently presses it to Aviator's chest, moving the water across his body. The pain slowly starts to ebb away, and Aviator allows a breath to fully travel through his lungs instead of the shallow gasps he's been using to avoid suffocating. He's aware of his teammates quietly talking over something, he doesn't know what, but something tells him that when they finally part, they know more about his situation than he was able to express.

Straw takes about twenty minutes to fully heal Aviator, and when she's done, she tells Skull to make sure he stays still for the rest of the day before staggering out the door.

With the pain gone, Aviator can finally think straight, and the first thought that he has when Stitch comes up to him is that whatever is going to happen next won't be good.

He's right.

She shows him her phone, which has a video thumbnail of him trapped in that codforsaken cell, and his stomach plummets. Did they really record him in there? "Is this what happened to you?" There's barely concealed rage behind her tone as she stares at him.

Aviator shifts awkwardly. "Yeah. Why?"

Stitch purses her lips and stands again without speaking and turns to Skull. "We're going down there."

"Woah, woah, wait," Aviator sits up, all the blood rushing from his brain and his friends look like they want to steady him, but he doesn't have time for that. "You can't go down there!"

"He hurt you." Skull looks about ready to murder someone, and while part of Aviator is glad for that, he really doesn't want his teammates risking themselves for him. "So we do the same." He pauses, glances at Paisley, before looking back at Aviator. "Stay here. Aloha will be over soon."

And then they're gone.

Aviator just groans and falls back onto the couch. So Aloha's coming over. Maybe Skull knows that Aloha was the catalyst for all this, but Aviator really doesn't want to play the blame game today, not since Aloha would probably go along with a harmless joke, but as far as Aviator knows, he would never want to actually hurt someone else.

There's a knock on the door minutes later, and Aviator is too tired to get up to open it. "It's unlocked!"

Aloha appears the doorway, looking hesitant, and Aviator knows immediately that he's seen the video already by the way he looks scared on coming inside. "Uh, hey Avi."

"Hi Aloha." He keeps his eyes on the ceiling.

There's two seconds of pure silence before both speak at the same time.

"Look, I'm sorry--"

"You have nothing to be sorry for."

Aloha looks at him, shock written across his face. "I was the one who started the joke. It carried on way too long. I should've--"

"It's fine." On any other day, Aviator would've pretended everything was okay, but seeing the nearly downright terrified look on the other's face, he really genuinely thought it was okay. "You didn't know."

Aloha opens his mouth to protest again, but Aviator cuts him off before he can speak. "Aloha, it's fine. Really."

Aloha's mouth closes.

Aviator just resolves to close his eyes, assuming the other had nothing to say, and drifts off to sleep.

\--

When he wakes up, Aloha is gone, Skull sitting in the chair across from Aviator, Paisley and Stitch nowhere to be seen. He sits up, barely noticing the blanket that falls off of him, something he doesn't remember falling asleep in.

If Skull and the others are back, then that means--

"What happened?"

Skull's head jerks up from his almost-dozing position and Aviator almost feels bad, but he can't help but worry if anyone got hurt because of him. "Sorry?"

"What happened with all that?" He gestures to the large of the Inkling across from him, and Skull blinks slowly.

"We took care of it." His words are blunt, like always, and Aviator suppresses a smile.

"Of course you did."

"And I told everyone to lay off on the Avatar jokes for now--"

Aviator winces. The word holds some sort of impact with him: words being blasted through a speaker, drowning in sand, being burned to a crisp, being flooded with water. Skull's studying him again, eyes narrowed slightly in concern.

"--so they won't be calling you that term any time soon, not if I have anything to say about it."

He notices how his leader refrains from using the title again and feels a wave of appreciation for his friend. "....Thanks, Skull."

Skull's eyes lighten slightly, and that's how Aviator knows he's smiling underneath the bandanna, a grin spreading across his own face in response.

\--

Skull had done a good job in making sure people didn't talk about the Avatar anymore. Sure, the title was said in passing a lot, and Aviator found a way to avoid flashing back to the cell underground, but no one ever came up to Aviator and asked if he was the Avatar ever again.

As most incidents did, the time for the joke and the memory of the incident passed altogether and Aviator could finally step outside without the whispers threatening to send him over the edge. People still sometimes stepped lightly around him, but he started to use the word 'Avatar' in relation to the Avatar Team, the Blue Team, and as soon as that happened, everyone started to loosen up.

If things got too terrible, Aviator's teammates always had his back, sticking by him through those panic attacks and weird seizures in the middle of practice, and for that, he was grateful.

Things wouldn't really be the same, but really, maybe it was for the best, because even though Octavio messed him up badly, the former did do one thing right: he finally got everyone to stop calling Aviator the Avatar.

**Author's Note:**

> ty to my friend on discord for encouraging me to do this shit jsdkfjsd


End file.
